A Land Far Away

Can a cleric who has fallen out of their dietie's favor still cast spells from divine scrolls or not?

Ex-cleric:

d20SRD.org wrote:A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features

Scrolls:

d20SRD.org wrote:The user must have the spell on his or her class list.

Reads clear-cut to me. You lose the class ability that is the spell list, and scrolls demand that the spell is on your list.

Fair enough.

Reading from the very, very bottom of the d20 cleric entry...

Ex-Clerics

A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).

The list of Class Features is right above the end part. Those features all feel pretty cleric-y, except the weapon/armor/shield stuff which as you'll see, is the one exception. Lose faith, don't all of a sudden forget how to use a mace.

Again though, this is plain old D&D.

Whether an ALFA DM team takes a more lenient view, if you're asking re: ALFA, over to them. Example, Paladins fall all the time, and they have a lot of "passive" powers like save bonus, fear/disease immunity, a nice aura and whatnot, which don't vanish in ALFA.

I had an ALFA cleric who quit old faith and sure did lean on scrolls, but also have a few UMD ranks, even if one was to say "hmm, maybe shouldn't have used scrolls in retrospect", well, guess call the PC lucky for not pulling a mishap on what could be thought of (again, in retrospect) of UMD on any scroll use. (Scripted fizzles and mishaps would happen if I'd tried arcane scrolls I'm sure, but cleric type means free pass on those).

So yeah, I think the PnP answer is fairly clear, ALFA (which can't turn off some things at present), more a "work with the DMs..." which is probably what happens with fallen/redeemed situations anyhow.

PS - not sure this is exactly lore, sure isn't standards either, it's just "huh, here's a situation."

PPS here's an ENworld thread too, short and sweet, re PnP:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy ... rolls.html

Brokenbone wrote:(which can't turn off some things at present),

The things we can't currently turn off are scrolls and spell lists, mind you, which is something we can just say "That's a bug; don't cast spells or use scrolls." to. Everything else can have a widget made for it on demand.

Interesting side bar though...

In the Silence of Lloth the clerics relied heavily on scrolls as their prayers for spells went unanswered.

Interesting difference. If *you* fall then you lose all the class abilities. If your god goes on holiday, you're still a cleric....just a spell-less one.

Brokenbone wrote:Whether an ALFA DM team takes a more lenient view, if you're asking re: ALFA, over to them. Example, Paladins fall all the time, and they have a lot of "passive" powers like save bonus, fear/disease immunity, a nice aura and whatnot, which don't vanish in ALFA.

I speak from experience when I say that Paladins that fall certainly do lose everything that makes them a Paladin (outside of locking out their spells, which you have to just treat as not actually being there).

dergon darkhelm wrote:Interesting side bar though...

In the Silence of Lloth the clerics relied heavily on scrolls as their prayers for spells went unanswered.

Interesting difference. If *you* fall then you lose all the class abilities. If your god goes on holiday, you're still a cleric....just a spell-less one.

Interesting difference. I like it.

Magile wrote:

Brokenbone wrote:Whether an ALFA DM team takes a more lenient view, if you're asking re: ALFA, over to them. Example, Paladins fall all the time, and they have a lot of "passive" powers like save bonus, fear/disease immunity, a nice aura and whatnot, which don't vanish in ALFA.

I speak from experience when I say that Paladins that fall certainly do lose everything that makes them a Paladin (outside of locking out their spells, which you have to just treat as not actually being there).

Didn't know we could get rid of the passive stuff... cool. Do we (or should we?) get rid of passive and active "domain" powers for clerics, if fallen? Like the free feats or ability to smite or ability to get strong a few minutes etc.?

I think PnP kinda says Aye on that...
would also say priest should not be able to use scrolls, seems kinda clear by Ice's post.
Why would we not get rid of them? (assuming its easy and we can)

Isnt it up to a god to grant you powers?
If you fall in one faith, what's to stop another god picking up the pieces by say allowing a fallen cleric to utilise scrolls written by one of their faithful?

I'm sure there are plenty of evil gods who would like to take the opportunity to gradually and surreptitiously convert a fallen cleric, Beshaba for example (it wasn't your fault, it was fate, gods can be so unfair - come worship me and we'll get them back for making you a pariah, nasty accidents for all of them). Conversely, I'm sure Lathander/Lathanderites would love to help an evil cleric become "reborn".

Clerics switching faiths has been covered, I think the line is not in the srd though. It's easier than one might think according to that, just involves a servant of the new religion and a quest to prove one's allegiance, doesn't even have adverse effect like level loss. Hopefully a good DM will make some costs associated for chronic faith shoppers, though ...

What the rules do say is that you can only use scrolls if you are a full cleric of your new faith, which includes being able to cast spells normally. While presumably a DM could possess a God and say they do [whatever], using such a literal deus ex machina to flat out counter the base rules we've established as our framework is exceedingly bad from in our multi-DM environment. So "gradual effects" sound like a great plot arc, but extending extra-rulebook effects beyond the confines of that plot and your DMage can surely make a mess of the game when you're not on.